Life Half Full by Delia Goh

LIFE HALF FULL

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS THE LAST CAB RIDE Nerburn, K. (2009, November 20). The last cab ride. Retrieved from http://academictips.org/blogs/the-last-cab-ride/ THE ELEPHANT ROPE Stephen (2011, June 17). The elephant rope. Retrieved from http:// academictips.org/blogs/the-elephant-rope/ POSITIVE THINKING Schwarts, F. B (2011, June 13). Positive thinking. Retrieved from http:// academictips.org/blogs/positive-thinking/ THE MOUSE TRAP This book is brought to you by:

Stephen (2010, February 5). The mouse trap. Retrieved from http:// academictips.org/blogs/the-mouse-trap/ WHO PACKED MY PARACHUTE Unknown (2001). Who Packed My Parachute. Retrieved from http:// www.heartnsouls.com/stories/c/s283.shtml POISON Unknown (2001). Poison. Retrieved from http://www.heartnsouls.com/ stories/a/s11.shtml

FOREWORD Do you see the glass half full or half empty? Everybody could do with a bit more happiness and optimism especially living in such a fast-paced and stressful environment. The Positive People Project is a campaign aimed to bring positivity and encouragement to people. Be inspired and encouraged from the quotes and stories this small booklet bring to you and share the positivity around!

“A QUOTE A DAY KEEPS YOUR SORROWS AWAY.”

ATTITUDE

is a little thing that makes a big difference. WINSTON CHURCHILL

MY GOAL Draw or paste a picture of your motivation for your goal.

Dance like no one is watching. Sing like no one is listening. Love like youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve never been hurt, and live like itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s heaven on Earth. MARK TWAIN

MY POSITIVITY CHECKLIST Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m grateful I can appreciate I am strong

I encouraged someone today! I can handle every adversities that comes my way! I will not give up

I have learnt from my mistakes

Laugh

I love myselff

Smile

I am living in the present and not of my past

Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m happy

My personal quote

Forget the times of your distress, but never forget what they have taught you. HERBERT GASSER

MY ACHIEVEMENTS Year

Year

Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great ones make you feel that you too can be great. MARK TWAIN

MY HAPPINESS METER SAD

HAPPY

Today has been a great day because:

The only opinion about your dream that counts is yours. The negative comments of others merely reflect their limitationsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; not yours. CYNTHIA KERSEY

MY GOAL Draw or paste a picture of your motivation for your goal.

Feeling grateful or appreciative of someone or something in your life actually attracts more of the things that you appreciate or value in your life. NORTHRUP CHRISTIANE

MY POSITIVITY CHECKLIST Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m grateful I can appreciate I am strong

I encouraged someone today! I can handle every adversities that comes my way! I will not give up

I have learnt from my mistakes

Laugh

I love myselff

Smile

I am living in the present and not of my past

Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m happy

My personal quote

The journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step. LAO TZU

MY ACHIEVEMENTS Year

Year

MY HAPPINESS METER SAD

HAPPY

Today has been a great day because:

TRUE VICTORY

is not about finishing first; it is about finishing regardless of how many times you fall. REBECCA ELITS

MY GOAL Draw or paste a picture of your motivation for your goal.

THE ONLY WAY ON EARTH TO MULTIPLY HAPPINESS IS TO DIVIDE IT. PAUL SCHERE

MY POSITIVITY CHECKLIST Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m grateful I can appreciate I am strong

I encouraged someone today! I can handle every adversities that comes my way! I will not give up

I have learnt from my mistakes

Laugh

I love myselff

Smile

I am living in the present and not of my past

Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m happy

My personal quote

SELF-PITY ISOUR WORST ANDENEMY IF WE YIELD TO IT, NEVER

WE CAN

DO ANYTHING WISE IN THE WORLD.

HELEN KELLER

MY ACHIEVEMENTS Year

Year

We either make ourselves happy or miserable. The amount of work is the same. CARLOS CASTENEDA

MY HAPPINESS METER SAD

HAPPY

Today has been a great day because:

ONCE UPON A STORY

THE LAST CAB RIDE Twenty years ago, I drove a cab for a living. One time I arrived in the middle of the night for a pick up at a building that was dark except for a single light in a ground floor window. Under these circumstances, many drivers would just honk once or twice, wait a minute, then drive away. But I had seen too many impoverished people who depended on taxis as their only means of transportation. Unless a situation smelled of danger, I always went to the door. This passenger might be someone who needs my assistance, I reasoned to myself. So I walked to the door and knocked. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Just a minute,â&#x20AC;? answered a frail, elderly voice.

I could hear something being dragged across the floor. After a long pause, the door opened. A small woman in her 80’s stood before me. She was wearing a print dress and a pillbox hat with a veil pinned on it, like somebody out of a 1940s movie. By her side was a small nylon suitcase. The apartment looked as if no one had lived in it for years. All the furniture was covered with sheets. There were no clocks on the walls, no knickknacks or utensils on the counters. In the corner was a cardboard box filled with photos and glassware.

“Would you carry my bag out to the car?” she said. I took the suitcase to the cab, then returned to assist the woman. She took my arm and we walked slowly toward the curb. She kept thanking me for my kindness. “It’s nothing,” I told her. “I just try to treat my passengers the way I would want my mother treated.” “Oh, you’re such a good boy,” she said. When we got in the cab, she gave me an address, then

asked, “Could you drive through downtown?” “It’s not the shortest way,” I answered quickly. “Oh, I don’t mind,” she said. “I’m in no hurry. I’m on my way to a hospice.” I looked in the rear view mirror. Her eyes were glistening. “I don’t have any family left,” she continued. “The doctor says I don’t have very long.” I quietly reached over and shut off the meter. “What route would you like me to take?” I asked. For the next two hours, we drove through the city. She showed me the building where she had once worked as an elevator operator. We drove through the neighborhood where she and her husband had lived when they were newlyweds. She had me pull up in front of a furniture warehouse that had once been a ballroom where she had gone dancing as a girl.

“But great moments often catch us unaware— beautifully wrapped in what others may consider a small one.” Sometimes she’d ask me to slow in front of a particular building or corner and would sit staring into the darkness, saying nothing. As the first hint of sun was creasing the horizon, she suddenly said, “I’m tired. Let’s go now.” We drove in silence to the address she had given me.

It was a low building, like a small convalescent home, with a driveway that passed under a portico. Two orderlies came out to the cab as soon as we pulled up. They were solicitous and intent, watching her every move. They must have been expecting her. I opened the trunk and took the small suitcase to the door. The woman was already seated in a wheelchair. “How much do I owe you?” she asked, reaching into her purse. “Nothing,” I said. “You have to make a living,” she answered. “There are other passengers.” Almost without thinking, I bent and gave her a hug. She held onto me tightly.

“You gave an old woman a little moment of joy,” she said. “Thank you.” I squeezed her hand, then walked into the dim morning light. Behind me, a door shut. It was the sound of the closing of a life. I didn’t pick up any more passengers that shift. I drove aimlessly, lost in thought. For the rest of that day, I could hardly talk. What if that woman had gotten an angry driver, or one who was impatient to end his shift? What if I had refused to take the run, or had honked once, then driven away? On a quick review, I don’t think that I have done anything more important in my life. We’re conditioned to think that our lives revolve around great moments. But great moments often catch us unaware—beautifully wrapped in what others may consider a small one.

THE ELEPHANT ROPE As a man was passing the elephants, he suddenly stopped, confused by the fact that these huge creatures were being held by only a small rope tied to their front leg. No chains, no cages. It was obvious that the elephants could, at anytime, break away from their bonds but for some reason, they did not.

“Failure is part of learning…”

He saw a trainer nearby and asked why these animals just stood there and made no attempt to get away. “Well,” trainer said, “when they are very young and much smaller we use the same size rope to tie them and, at that age, it’s enough to hold them. As they grow up, they are conditioned to believe they cannot break away. They believe the rope can still hold them, so they never try to break free.” The man was amazed. These animals could at any time break free from their bonds but because they believed they couldn’t, they were stuck right where they were. Like the elephants, how many of us go through life hanging onto a belief that we cannot do something, simply because we failed at it once before? Failure is part of learning; we should never give up the struggle in life.

Jerry was the kind of guy you love to hate. He was always in a good mood and always had something positive to say. When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would reply, â&#x20AC;&#x153;If I were any better, I would be twins!â&#x20AC;? He was a unique manager because he had several waiters who had followed him around from restaurant to restaurant. The reason the waiters followed Jerry was because of his attitude. He was a natural motivator. If an employee was having a bad day, Jerry was there telling the employee how to look on the positive side of the situation.

POSITIVE THINKING 40

“Attitude, after all, is everything.”

Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went up to Jerry and asked him, “I don’t get it! You can’t be a positive person all of the time. How do you do it?” Jerry replied, “Each morning I wake up and say to myself, Jerry, you have two choices today. You can choose to be in a good mood or you can choose to be in a bad mood.’ I choose to be in a good mood. Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim or I can choose to learn from it. I choose to learn from it. Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining or I can point out the positive side of life. I choose the positive side of life.”

“Yeah, right, it’s not that easy,” I protested. “Yes it is,” Jerry said. “Life is all about choices. When you cut away all the junk, every situation is a choice. You choose how you react to situations. You choose how people will affect your mood. You choose to be in a good mood or bad mood. The bottom line: It’s your choice how you live life.” I reflected on what Jerry said. Soon thereafter, I left the restaurant industry to start my own business. We lost touch, but often thought about him when I made a choice about life instead of

reacting to it. Several years later, I heard that Jerry did something you are never supposed to do in a restaurant business: he left the back door open one morning and was held up at gunpoint by three armed robbers. While trying to open the safe, his hand, shaking from nervousness, slipped off the combination. The robbers panicked and shot him. Luckily, Jerry was found relatively quickly and rushed to the local trauma center. After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, Jerry was released from the hospital with fragments of the bullets still in his body. I saw Jerry about six months after the accident. When I asked him how he was, he replied, “If I were any better, I’d be twins. Wanna see my scars?” I declined to see his wounds, but did ask him what had gone through his mind as the robbery took place. “The first thing that went through my mind was that I should have locked the back door,” Jerry replied. “Then, as I lay on the floor, I remembered that I had two choices: I could choose to live, or I could choose to die. I chose to live.”

“Life is all about choices. When you cut away all the junk, every situation is a choice. You choose how you react to situations. You choose how people will affect your mood. You choose to be in a good mood or bad mood.”

“Weren’t you scared? Did you lose consciousness?” I asked. Jerry continued, “The paramedics were great. They kept telling me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the emergency room and I saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared. In their eyes, I read, ‘He’s a dead man.’ I knew I needed to take action.”

questions at me,” said Jerry. “She asked if I was allergic to anything. ‘Yes,’ I replied. The doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply… I took a deep breath and yelled, ‘Bullets!’ Over their laughter, I told them, ‘I am choosing to live. Operate on me as if I am alive, not dead.”

“What did you do?” I asked.

Jerry lived thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his amazing attitude. I learned from him that every day we have the choice to live fully.

“Well, there was a big, burly nurse shouting

Attitude, after all, is everything.

A mouse looked through the crack in the wall to see the farmer and his wife open a package. “What food might this contain?” the mouse wondered. He was devastated to discover it was a mousetrap. Retreating to the farmyard, the mouse proclaimed the warning: “There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!” The chicken clucked and scratched, raised her head and said “Mr.Mouse, I can tell this is a grave concern to you, but

THE MOUSE TRAP 44

it is of no consequence to me. I cannot be bothered by it.” The mouse turned to the pig and told him “There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!” The pig sympathized, but said “I am so very sorry, Mr.Mouse, but there is nothing I can do about it but pray. Be assured you are in my prayers.” The mouse turned to the cow and said “There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!” The cow said “Wow, Mr. Mouse. I’m sorry for you, but it’s no skin off my nose.” So, the mouse returned to the house, head down and dejected, to face the farmer’s mousetrap alone.

That very night a sound was heard throughout the house— like the sound of a mousetrap catching its prey. The farmer’s wife rushed to see what was caught. In the darkness, she did not see it was a venomous snake whose tail the trap had caught. The snake bit the farmer’s wife. The farmer rushed her to the hospital and she returned home with a fever. Everyone knows you cure a fever with fresh chicken soup, so the farmer took his hatchet to the farmyard for the soup’s main ingredient. However, his wife’s sickness continued, friends and neighbors came to sit with her around the clock. To feed them, the farmer butchered the pig.

The farmer’s wife did not get well; she died. So many people came for her funeral, the farmer had the cow slaughtered to provide enough meat for all of them. The mouse looked upon it all from his crack in the wall with great sadness. So, the next time you hear someone is facing a problem and think it doesn’t concern you, remember: when one of us is threatened, we are all at risk. We are all involved in this journey called life. We must keep an eye out for one another and make an extra effort to encourage one another. Each of us is a vital thread in another person’s tapestry.

in a Vietnamese prison. He survived the ordeal and now lectures on lessons learned from that experience.

WHO PACKED MY PARACHUTE Charles Plumb, a U.S. Naval Academy graduate, was a jet pilot in Vietnam. After 75 combat missions, his plane was

destroyed by a surface-to-air missile. Plumb ejected and parachuted into enemy hands. He was captured and spent 6 years

One day, when Plumb and his wife were sitting in a restaurant, a man at another table came up and said, “You’re Plumb! You flew jet fighters in Vietnam from the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk. You were shot down!” “How in the world did you know that?” asked Plumb. “I packed your parachute,” the man replied. Plumb gasped in surprise and gratitude. The man pumped his hand and said, “I guess it worked!” Plumb assured him, “It sure

did. If your chute hadn’t worked, I wouldn’t be here today.” Plumb couldn’t sleep that night, thinking about that man. Plumb says, “I kept wondering what he might have looked like in a Navy uniform, a white hat, a bib in the back, and bell-bottom trousers. I wonder how many times I might have seen him and not even said, “Good morning, how are you?” or anything because, you see, I was a fighter pilot and he was just a sailor. Plumb thought of the many hours the sailor had spent on a long wooden table in the bowels of the ship, carefully weaving the shrouds and folding the silks of each chute, holding in his hands each time the fate of someone he didn’t even know.

“Now,” Plumb asks his audience, “who’s packing your parachute?” Everyone has someone who provides what they need to make it through the day. Plumb also points out that he needed many kinds of parachutes when his plane was shot down over enemy territory --- he needed his physical parachute, his mental parachute, his emotional parachute, and his spiritual parachute. He called on all these supports before reaching safety.

As you go through this week, this month, this year, recognize people who pack your parachute. I am sending you this as my way of thanking you for your part in packing my parachute!

Sometimes in the daily challenges that life gives us, we miss what is really important. We may fail to say hello, please, or thank you, congratulate someone on something wonderful that has happened to them, give a compliment, or just do something nice for no reason.

A long time ago, a girl named Li-Li got married and went to live with her husband and motherin-law. In a very short time, Li-Li found that she couldn’t get along with her mother-in-law at all. Their personalities were very different, and Li-Li was angered by many of her motherin-law’s habits. In addition, she criticized Li-Li constantly.

POISON Days passed days, and weeks passed weeks. Li-Li and her mother-in-law never stopped arguing and fighting. But what made the situation even worse

was that, according to ancient Chinese tradition, Li-Li had to bow to her mother-in-law and obey her every wish. All the anger and unhappiness in the house was causing the poor husband great distess. Finally, Li-Li could not stand her mother-in-law’s bad temper and dictatorship any longer, and she decided to do something about it. Li-Li went to see her father’s good friend, Mr. Huang, who sold herbs. She told him the situation and asked if he would give her some poison so that she could solve the problem once and for all. Mr. Huang thought for awhile, and finally said, Li-Li, I will help you solve your problem, but you must listen to me and obey what

“The person who loves others will also be loved.”

I tell you. Li-Li said, “Yes, Mr. Huang, I will do whatever you tell me to do.” Mr. Huang went into the back room, and returned in a few minutes with a package of herbs. He told Li-Li, “You can’t use a quick-acting poison to get rid of your mother-inlaw, because that would cause people to become suspicious. Therefore, I have given you a number of herbs that will slowly

build up poison in her body. Every other day prepare some pork or chicken and put a little of these herbs in her serving. Now, in order to make sure that nobody suspects you when she dies, you must be very careful to act very friendly towards her. Don’t argue with her, obey her every wish, a! nd treat her like a queen.” Li-Li was so happy. She thanked Mr. Huang and

hurried home to start her plot of murdering her mother-in-law. Weeks went by, and months went by, and every other day, Li-Li served the specially treated food to her mother-in-law. She remembered what Mr. Huang had said about avoiding suspicion, so she controlled her temper, obeyed her mother-in-law, and treated her like her own

mother. After six months had passed, the whole household had changed. Li-Li had practiced controlling her temper so much that she found that she almost never got mad or upset. She hadnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t had an argument in six months with her mother-in-law, who now seemed much kinder and easier to get along with.

The mother-in-lawâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s attitude toward Li-Li changed, and she began to love Li-Li like her own daughter. She kept telling friends and relatives that Li-Li was the best daughter-in-law one could ever find. Li-Li and her mother-in-law were now treating each other like a real mother and daughter. Li-Liâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s

husband was very happy to see what was happening.

my own mother. I do not want her to die because of the poison I gave her.” Mr. Huang smiled One day, Li-Li came to see Mr. and nodded his head. “Li-Li, Huang and asked for his help there’s nothing to worry about. I again. She said, “Dear Mr. Huang, never gave you any poison. The please help me to keep the herbs I gave you were vitamins poison from killing my motherto improve her health. The only in-law! She’s changed into such poison was in your mind and a nice woman, and I love her like your attitude toward her, but

that has been all washed away by the love which you gave to her.” Have you ever realized that how you treat others is exactly how they will treat you? In China it is said: The person who loves others will also be loved.

NOTES